


Children's Stories

by alicekittridge



Category: The Haunting of Bly Manor (TV)
Genre: A teaspoon of angst, F/F, Missing Scene, POV Third Person, Past Tense, Some Plot, a lot of feelings, some sensuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:01:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27407746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alicekittridge/pseuds/alicekittridge
Summary: Rainy nights are for sad stories.
Relationships: Dani Clayton/Jamie, Hannah Grose/Owen Sharma
Kudos: 54





	Children's Stories

**Author's Note:**

> This strange little thing came to me while I was trying to think of all the words that rhymed with "dead." I hope you enjoy it too.

**I** T WAS A cold, rainy October evening—on a Thursday—and it had been a while since the children had declared story time. The au pair found herself thinking this after Flora and Miles had slinked upstairs after their dinner, when the kitchen turned quieter with the adult company. The last story was about a lost kitten and a puppet, interrupted by a phone call. That had been… weeks ago, Dani thought, looking round at the populated table and the dessert of apple charlotte a la mode still being worked on, amazed that Owen was looking as cheerful as he was. There were moments, of course, when the grief seemed to hit him again, but like a tidal wave, eventually calmed and was soothed to shore. Then again, thought Dani, reaching around the gardener for the bottle of vintage port, that was what loss was like. A stormy sea. The waves large mountains, accompanied by dark skies and heavy rain, not a lighthouse to be seen, unless one kept sailing.

There was no moon. The thick clouds obscured it. There were only the lights in the house and the ones outside it. Rain pattered the windows and the roofs, like little wet mice feet, sliding down the glass like tears. Every now and again, a soft rumble of thunder rolled from one part of the sky to the other. The lightning, thankfully, was not at all close.

As if reading the au pair’s mind, there came a call from the top of the manor’s stairs that interrupted the remainder of dessert.

“Attention valued patrons!” It was Flora. “Story time is about to begin!”

The gardener groaned.

Dani refilled her glass without being asked, knowing the gardener’s petulance for story time after the first mumbled “Let’s get this over with.”

“You’re a star, Poppins,” she said to Dani.

The au pair took her own glass of port with her, sitting between Owen and the gardener, leaning closer to the latter. She asked, quietly, “What do you think this one’s about?”

“Well,” said the gardener, pointing with her wineglass, “they’re dressed in black. I can only guess.”

The children had their backs turned to the audience, but the outfits were clear. Flora was in a black dress and stockings. Miles wore a suit. Their hair had been done neatly. It was only when they turned around that the audience saw their faces were painted with pale foundation and someone had shaded underneath their eyes to make them appear sunken.

“Before we begin,” said Miles, projecting for all to hear, “we would like to say a word of thanks—”

“—to our very own coroner,” said Flora, gesturing to the top of the stairs, where Hannah emerged, taking the steps slowly, smiling down at the three adults gathered in the foyer. When she reached the landing the children were perched on, she bowed deeply.

“Thank you very much,” she said. “The pleasure is all mine, darlings.”

The gardener’s sigh filled Dani’s ear. “Gonna be a long one.”

“I should’ve brought you the bottle,” Dani said.

“Too late to fetch it now.”

Dani lowered her voice to a whisper. “There’s always after.”

The smile she shared with the gardener was one no one else could read.

The stage to themselves, Flora and Miles struck their poses and began in unison: “The show has begun. We have an announcement to make to you.

“We are dead.”

“Shot in the head,” said Flora.

“Died in bed,” said Miles.

“Filled with dread.”

“Couldn’t avoid the little red thread.”

“We walk among you with arms spread.”

“Forever doomed to think of business unshed,” said Miles.

“And of life we cannot re-tread,” Flora said.

In unison, “And still we cannot escape that little red thread.”

They moved down the steps, Miles pausing in the middle while Flora continued until she was near the bottom. She went on, “I know you will have questions. Some we cannot answer. But this I know. The dead walk among you. Watch over you. You cannot see them, but they’re there. I can,” she raised her hand, pinkie out, “promise you.”

Miles moved down to join her.

They clasped their hands between them.

Flora said, “And I can promise you—”

“—really promise you—” said Miles.

And in unison once again, “—dead does not mean gone.”

They bowed to applause.

“They’re brilliant at rhymes, these two,” Hannah said.

“Was it you who did the makeup?” asked Owen.

“They insisted.”

“You did a wonderful job,” Dani told her. “I’ll get them to bed.”

And so, while the rest of the audience was left to contemplate the rather dark tale, the au pair shuffled the children back upstairs to their bedrooms and helped wash the carefully applied makeup from their faces, singing praises all the while. She tucked them into their beds, said goodnight, and returned to the kitchen, where the dessert dishes were being piled into a soapy sink and the gardener was scraping the last of the apple charlotte from its pan.

“Eating your feelings?” Dani joked to her.

“That was even sadder than the last one,” the gardener said around a full mouth. “Can you blame me?”

“There are different ways to process grief, dear,” Hannah reminded her. “But I am feeling rather cathartic after that, I must admit.”

“I feel soothed, somehow,” Owen said. “Like after Flora told me I wasn’t dying.” He shook his head. “We have an old soul among us.”

The night wore on, and as the hours grew later, the au pair found she was haunted by the words. They were as loud as bells when Owen and Hannah turned in for the night, when it was only her and the gardener sitting at the kitchen table in the low light.

“It was a strange story, don’t you think?” she asked the gardener, who was, by now, rather tipsy from the port.

“Death leaves impressions,” the gardener said.

Dani nodded. “It does,” she said softly. “I suppose it doesn’t hurt to be reminded of that.”

“Doesn’t it?”

The look on the gardener’s face was melancholy. Such a different look, thought Dani, from her usual confidence and cocky swagger. She took the gardener’s hand, weaving their fingers together. “It does,” she agreed, “but things other than death will hurt us. We might as well do it anyway.”

The gardener’s scoff wasn’t unkind. “And here I was thinkin’ _I_ was the optimist of the two of us.”

Thunder rolled in the silence. The rain had gotten heavier. Instead of mice feet it sounded like drums. The thought of the gardener strolling to her car parked in the gravel drive filled Dani with an emotion she couldn’t name. So she said, “Stay tonight. The weather’s godawful.”

A smile touched the gardener’s lips. “Is this a ploy, Poppins?”

“Is it working?”

“More than you know.”

The gardener’s lips tasted like apples and port.

They retreated upstairs to the silence of Dani’s bedroom, eager to put the sad story out of mind, yet they found, in the midst of making their own storm, that they may have found their lighthouse. That there may, perhaps, be a little red thread tied between them. But here, in the sweet darkness and cloying warmth, there was no knowledge of just how far that string would pull.


End file.
